"I see Queen Mab hath been with you....
She gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees."
- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
Warwick Goble
Shakespeare-Inspired Game ‘Hail Macbeth’ Challenges Interactive Storytelling Boundaries
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https://variety.com/2025/gaming/news/shakespeare-macbeth-game-1236335046/
THESEUS: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
— A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
Sonnet 028 - XXVIII
How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,
But day by night and night by day oppress'd,
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
bot by @davidaugust
GLOUCESTER: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.
— Richard III, I, i
Sonnet 067 - LXVII
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains.
O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
In days long since, before these last so bad.
bot by @davidaugust
THESEUS: Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
— A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i
Sonnet 092 - XCII
But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine;
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend:
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
O what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
bot by @davidaugust
Edwin Forrest, born OTD in 1806, was a prominent American #Shakespeare actor; his feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849 https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #history
KING HENRY IV: The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape
In forms imaginary the unguided days
And rotten times that you shall look upon
When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
— 2 Henry IV, IV, iv
Sonnet 122 - CXXII
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
bot by @davidaugust
The opening crawl from Star Wars, in the style of The Bard:
It is a period of civil war.
The spaceships of the rebels, striking swift
From base unseen, have gain'd a vict'ry o'er
The cruel Galactic Empire, now adrift.
Amidst the battle, rebel spies prevail'd
And stole the plans to a space station vast,
Whose pow'rful beams will later be unveil'd
And crush a planet: 'tis the DEATH STAR blast.
Pursu'd by agents sinister and cold,
Now Princess Leia to her home doth flee,
Deliv'ring plans and a new hope they hold:
Of bringing freedom to the galaxy.
In time so long ago begins our play,
In star-crossed galaxy far, far away.
Sonnet 094 - XCIV
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
bot by @davidaugust
YORK: Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity—
So it be new, there's no respect how vile—
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
— Richard II, II, i
PROSPERO: Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my brain is troubled:
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.
— The Tempest, IV, i
Sonnet 101 - CI
O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fixed;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermixed'?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.
bot by @davidaugust
English Renaissance playwright Francis Beaumont, who died OTD in 1616, was most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher, who followed William #Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #history
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad, tires in a mile-a.
Henry Ospovat, from "Shakespeare's Songs," London: 1901 #illustration #art #Shakespeare https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/merry-heart/
